Our Weekend.

This year has been pretty busy for us so far, and we have a lot on over the next few weeks, so we decided to grab the opportunity and spend the weekend in New Plymouth.

We both love our trips to NP.  It’s always nice being away from the big city and spending time with my sister and her family – We don’t see nearly enough of them. 

I am always amazed how much Levi changes between our visits.  We only saw him a week ago, but I’m sure he is bigger, chattier and crawling much faster!

 



I’m amazed at how much sister is changing too... 

Neice/Nephew #2 is on the way - ETA: May 20th :)

 We spent Saturday afternoon at the beach and despite having a big bag of beach toys to choose from, all Levi was interested in was exploring …

Though I can’t say the same for the bigger boys... 

We spent Sunday at the local motocross track watching Matt and his brother Gareth race.  Sarah, Levi and I watched from the pits while Mike got right down in amongst it and snapped shots of the boys.

We were meant to leave at 1.30pm, but we completely lost track of time and didn’t end up leaving until 4.30pm.  Thankfully, the drive back was much quicker and we were home within four and a half hours. 

I can’t wait for our next visit, I’m missing them already.

 Thanks for having us, you lot.  We love you so much and we can’t wait to meet the next addition to your (and our!) family.

xoxo

Fridge Inspiration.

On our fridge right now...



- Mary Oliver



(I ran out of l’s, but I think the word ‘wild’ deserves an exclamation mark anyway, don’t you?)

Happy Friday everybody :)

This Morning's Full Moon.

There’s nothing like a full moon perched in a pretty morning

sky to start your day.

Waitangi Weekend.

We were lucky enough to go over to Tiritiri Matangi Island for the long weekend.  

We caught the ferry over on Saturday morning, stayed two nights in the DOC bunkhouse with Mike’s family and their family friends, and then caught the ferry back home again on Monday afternoon.

The scenery is absolutely gorgeous on the island.  There are heaps of tracks to explore, lots of native birds to see, beautiful beaches to swim at, a wharf to fish and jump off, kiwis to spot at night time and penguins to spy on in their burrows.
  

(it was a little bit windy on the ferry)

(Mike and his mum, Hobbs Beach)

(Wood Pigeon and Takahe)

(Mike and I, a Tui feeding)

(spunky husband admiring the view, another sho of the wharf)

(FSIL (favourite sister in law) and me, fishing off the wharf)

(me with my first catch of the day - three snapper!  Mike jumping off the wharf)

(penguin feathers in one of the drains at the top of the island and a Little Blue
penguin in one of the man-made burrows around the coast)

(love this pic of Mike and his dad)

(the lighthouse, Mike and I)

(world famous Takahe, Greg, trying to steal my singlet at the beach!)

(sunset at the wharf)

We were pretty tired (and a tad sunburnt) by the time we left on Monday, we but we had an awesome weekend and I would love to go back someday. 

If you haven’t been yet, I highly recommend that you do!

O-N-E.

Mike and I celebrated our first wedding anniversary over the weekend. 



(Old fashioned chocolate cake with a salted caramel filler,

complete with the topper from our wedding cake.)



We did the dinner-and-a-movie thing on Saturday night and it was perfect – it felt just like one of our first dates.  Then on Sunday, Mike woke me up with breakfast in bed and a seriously awesome present.  He found me a window frame and sanded and whitewashed it for me.  He was going to make me a blackboard with it, but he knew I would probably have some crafty ideas up my sleeve, so he left it plain so I can make it into whatever I want… He knows me far too well :)

I made Mike a photo book of our first married year - It’s crazy looking back at how much we managed to cram into a year!  I want to make sure we don’t forget any of it.  I wrote in the card that I’d made the book to keep with the traditional gift for first anniversaries, which is paper.  I got a text from him the next day saying that, just FYI, his gift also stuck with tradition, as it was just paper in its pre-paper form.  Haha, I love that guy.

I can’t believe it has already been a whole year since our wedding day.  Time has flown so fast, but the past 12 months have been amazing.  Our first year of marriage has been everything I expected it to be, but so, so much more.  I am more in love with Mike than ever and I’m so excited to see what the next year of our marriage holds.

(The only photo I took of us on our anniversary, oops.)

I love you, babe.  Happy one year (and three days) anniversary xxx

 

A Very Late Christmas Post.

I know, I know.  It’s been forever since I blogged.

I managed to lose my camera cable the day before Christmas.  The day before Christmas, I tell you.  Is that not horrendous timing to lose a camera cable? 

I found it a couple days ago… correction… Mike found it a couple days ago… in the bag he told me to look in when I first lost it... the bag I declined to look in because “I didn’t take it there, so I know it’s not in there.  The last place I saw it was on the stereo.” 


Next time I’ll listen. 

Maybe…

Anyhoo, we had an amazing Christmas and I hope you did, too :)

Christmas kind of snuck up on us this year, but Mike and I were both pretty excited – we set our alarms for 7.00, but were both awake by 6.30, haha!  We had a busy day travelling back and forth between our families, exchanging presents and eating a LOT of food…

Those homemade presents that I promised to share with you are only a month late… or should I say, 11 months early?  But they've arrived none the less.

Moustache mugs…

I seriously love these.  They make great family photos, too – as modelled by my in-laws :)

A painting for my sister, Rach.

I forgot to get pictures of the baking jars I made for my sister, but I did remember to snap the date jar I made for my hubby…

A framed cross stitch for my friend Neva. I might just have to make myself one, too. 

And how cute is the sewing kit that Neva made me?!

And just like that, Christmas is over for another year.  I've been in denial the past couple weeks, but yesterday, I sucked it up and took the decorations off our (somewhat crispy) Christmas tree…   The mantel decorations have come down… and the last few Christmas-remnants around the house will be put away tonight.  Sniff.

Christmas has left the building, people. 

But 2012 is here and it’s shapin’ up to be a good one.

...And there are only 343 sleeps 'til Christmas....

Made with Love.

I’ve done a lot better than I thought I would with my homemade presents.  Everybody has at least one small homemade gift and some have bigger ones as well.  

As much as I would like to show you what I’ve made, you’ll have to be patient - I’m too scared to post them in case any of the recipients see them before Christmas!  But here are some clues…

And here are (some of) the finished products, all wrapped and ready for Christmas morning :)

Yeah baby, those tags are homemade too. 

8 sleeps until I get to give them to everybody!

xx